Secrets of the Lost Summer (34 page)

Twenty-Five

I
thought it was my last night on this earth. I could see from Philip’s expression that he did, too, but the only words he spoke were ones of reassurance. When the wind and rain calmed, I knew enough about hurricanes to realize we were in the eye of this monster. At that moment, nothing seemed more natural than reaching out to another person for love and comfort.

The Hurricane of 1938 swept over Long Island and churned up the Connecticut River, killing more than seven hundred people and leaving a path of catastrophic destruction. In the Swift River Valley, the newly finished Winsor Dam and Goodnough Dike held.

I knew none of that as Philip and I held each other in the eye of the storm. Then, I only knew that I wasn’t alone. I was with the only man I would ever love.

I didn’t care about the stolen jewels.

“I love you, Gracie Webster,” Philip whispered in that eerie calm.

I knew that everything he said, everything we did together through that long, terrible storm, would remain embedded in my heart for the rest of my days.

Even now, as I watch the birds and look out at Quabbin as an old woman, I can hear his voice and feel his touch.

The calm of the eye gave way to more ferocious wind and rain. We reached for each other, and only when it was quiet and still, when a cool breeze touched our overheated skin, did Philip tell me what I had already guessed.

“My wife died of a fever almost three years ago. I have a daughter in England.”

“How old is she?” I asked.

“She’s three. Her name is Philippa. She’s with my parents right now.” He was as serious as I’d ever seen him, a mature father and lover, not the rakish thief who’d stolen jewels from a British lord, not the amused and irreverent swashbuckler of my fantasies. “I’m a pilot with the British Royal Air Force. I have to go home, Gracie. There’ll be war with Hitler. If I live—”

“You’ll live! You have to live! You have a child.”

“And I have you. I’ll come back to you, Gracie. I promise you.”

The next day, after the hurricane, I had to go back to our new home in Knights Bridge. Gran and Daddy would be terrified I’d been swept away by the hurricane. I knew that Philip couldn’t go with me, but I ached at having to leave him.

I remember his eyes as I left him. “I love you, Gracie,” he said over and over, until he was out of sight as I climbed over fallen trees and branches on my way to Knights Bridge on the other side of Carriage Hill.

With all the damage and disruption in the aftermath of the hurricane, I couldn’t return to my hideaway cabin for several days. I sat on my rock by the pond just in case Philip would call my name, but he didn’t. This time, he really was gone.

The state finally came for the cabin. They didn’t expect to find anyone there, but I talked a worker into letting me clear out my things. I packed my books and my blankets and drawings. As I folded up the cot, a small royal-red velvet bag fell onto the floor. It must have been tucked under the mattress.

I swear my heart stopped beating, but I recovered myself, swept up the bag and faked a little laugh. “I almost forgot I had this.”

“What is it?” the worker, a portly man in his forties, asked me.

“Would you believe a gift from the queen of England?”

He laughed, too.

Only later did I understand that Philip had left the jewels with me because he didn’t dare take them with him to England and risk being branded a thief. He would make peace with his brother-in-law, and then he would come back for the jewels, and for me.

Twenty-Six

D
ylan stood back as the search-and-rescue team took over and strapped Grace Webster to a stretcher. She was dehydrated and suffering from mild hypothermia, but she was already rallying, arguing with the paramedics. She wanted to walk back to her friend’s car. “If I could walk out here on my own,” she said, “I can certainly walk back on my own. I’ve done it many, many times.”

“When you were a teenager,” Olivia reminded her, then glanced at Dylan. “I’ll walk a little ways with her and then come back.”

“Take your time.”

She was obviously relieved that Grace was alive, even if she was showing a little of the stern Latin and English teacher of old. Dylan was relieved, too. He saw her off with the rescue team and then walked back down to the pond. He stood on Grace’s rock, looking out at the quiet water, the ducks, the marsh, the seemingly endless wilderness, and he wondered if his father had ever made it out here.

In a few minutes, Olivia joined him. “Why did Grace come back here now?”

Dylan could see she already knew the answer, but he said, “Because of me.”

“She figured out you knew about the missing Ashworth jewels and realized that was what your father was after.” Olivia walked closer to the water, her shoes sinking into the soft ground; she looked back at him. “I have a feeling Grace fell for this scoundrel British jewel thief.”

“Maybe he wasn’t such a scoundrel.”

“What are you thinking?”

Dylan winked at her. “I’m thinking today has worked out all right.” He hopped off the rock, slipped his arms around Olivia and held her close. “And some things are just meant to be.”

“They’re all nuts,” Mark Flanagan said as he and Dylan surveyed the exterior of his house in Knights Bridge, getting a sense of the possibilities—or, more likely, the extent of the problems. “Jess, Olivia, their mother. Randy, too. I don’t know if I’m coming or going half the time.”

Dylan grinned at him. It had been twenty-four hours since he and Olivia had found Grace Webster, and she hadn’t died in the woods, and it was a beautiful day. “Could be because you’re besotted,” he said lightly.

“Besotted? What the hell?” Mark laughed in surprise. “You’ve been listening to Grace, or living here has started to affect you.” He pulled back a bush of some kind and checked what appeared to be a section of rotted wall just above the foundation of the old house. “You’re right, though. I just can’t figure out what Jess wants. She’s never wanted to live anywhere but Knights Bridge, but she’s planning a trip to Paris and who knows where else.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“What if she gets to Paris and decides not to come back?”

“You’re going with her, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but I have to come back. My work’s here.”

“Her work’s here, too,” Dylan said. “So is her family. This isn’t about Jess, is it?”

“Maybe not.” Mark paused a moment, considering, then shook his head. “I’m not going to be tempted to leave Knights Bridge. Not again. I don’t care if anyone thinks I’m boring.”

“Boring? What’s that about? You’re a successful architect—”

“I was engaged in my early twenties for about ten minutes. It didn’t work out for a lot of reasons, but basically she thought I was a bore.”

“I don’t think Jess thinks you’re a bore, Mark. I think she just wants to go to Paris.”

He replaced the bush back in front of the wall. “Hides that mess.”

“It’s a problem?”

“One of many problems. This house isn’t in good shape.”

“So it looks run-down because it is run-down.”

“I’ve discovered in my work that not all old houses can or should be saved. I’ve said for a long time this one should probably be condemned.” He looked up at the second-floor window above him, grimaced and then turned back to Dylan. “Olivia doesn’t have Jess’s wanderlust. She wants to make this getaway of hers work. It’s off to a good start. She has a real chance. Is she why you have me out here?”

“I have to figure out what to do with this place,” Dylan said, deliberately keeping his answer vague.

Mark shook his head. “No, you don’t. You’re rich. You could go back to San Diego and do whatever you’ve been doing for the past two years.” He started around to the back of the house. “You need something to do, Dylan. You’re not one to be idle. Any chance of moving Noah Kendrick out here?”

Dylan realized Mark was joking. Just about the last place in the country anyone ever would expect to see Noah Kendrick was little Knights Bridge. Noah knew Boston from his MIT days and appreciated New England, but moving out here?

Dylan smiled. It was even crazier than him moving out here.

Mark stopped at the back steps and just shook his head at more rot. “This isn’t good. In fact, Dylan, this is really bad.”

“Wrecking ball time?”

“Past time.”

“All right. Tell me more about what kind of house you could design here that would blend in with the surroundings.”

“Blend in with The Farm at Carriage Hill, you mean?”

“I wouldn’t want to create another eyesore,” Dylan said with a smile.

Mark shifted his attention from the house to Dylan. “I was away from Knights Bridge for a long time. I never thought I’d come back. This isn’t San Diego, Dylan. Don’t talk yourself into thinking it is. It’s a pretty little town and I’m glad I came back, but it’s not a city.”

Dylan had the feeling Mark’s words had more to do with him and Jess Frost than anything else. Mark grew silent and edgy and left abruptly, as if he understood himself what he’d been getting at. Maybe he knew what he had to do now, Dylan thought, and headed back inside.

He looked at the old maps and Grace’s musty books, and he realized that Mark Flanagan wasn’t the only one who had to figure out what he had to do.

Dylan picked up one of the Latin primers. He’d never studied Latin. He’d never even remotely wanted to study Latin. He imagined Grace Webster here as a young teacher, a young woman who had figured out early in life that she had to rely on herself.

He knew what he had to do.

The truth might change Knights Bridge—and him—forever, but he couldn’t run from it.

He was halfway to the village when Loretta called him. “I’ve been trying to reach you,” she said.

He pulled over. “Lousy cell service.”

“Your kind of place,” she said sarcastically. “I don’t know if there are rocks you don’t want me to turn over. Tell me what you don’t want to hear.”

“I want everything, Loretta. The good, the bad and the ugly.”

“I did some digging. Philip Rankin died early in the war. He was a fighter pilot with the Royal Air Force. He went down during the Battle of Britain.”

Dylan noticed a few drops of rain on his windshield. The information wasn’t a surprise and yet he felt a sense of loss. “The jewels?”

“You were right. There’s no report that they were ever recovered. It’s hard to say if the police or anyone else suspected or had any evidence that Philip stole them, but I imagine there was talk. His wife—Lady Helena—died before the war, but you have that. Their daughter’s alive, still in England. She has a grown son and daughter and several grandchildren. A granddaughter’s in London. Alexandra Rankin Hunt. She’s a clothing designer, of all things. She plays up the mystique of the missing jewels.”

“What else, Loretta?”

Loretta hesitated. “What do you mean, ‘what else?’ Never mind. I have to go.”

“Loretta—”

She’d already disconnected. Dylan tossed the phone onto the seat and continued on through the village. The rain picked up. He turned on the wipers, noting how green the landscape was now, so different from his first day in Knights Bridge.

Audrey Frost had forgiven Grace her adventure with her car and joined her and Olivia for afternoon tea at Grace’s apartment at Rivendell. Olivia had made scones and brought them over with her. Afterward, she cleaned up the kitchen area while the two older women discussed their plans for the week. Grace had recovered fully but she was more subdued than usual, and her friend finally left, promising to see her tomorrow at yoga class.

“Come, Olivia,” Grace said. “Walk with me to the sunroom. It’s my favorite spot in this place.”

“You’re happy here, aren’t you, Grace?”

“Yes, I am. I truly am.” When they reached the sunroom, she grabbed Olivia’s hand, an intimate, emotional gesture for such a starchy woman. “He’s a handsome man, this Dylan McCaffrey.”

Olivia smiled. “He is.”

Grace squeezed her hand, then released it as she settled into a high-backed chair. “You’ve fallen for him, have you?”

The question startled her but Olivia answered, “I don’t mind saying that I have. Grace, the spot where we found you—”

“I spent many happy days there the last summer we lived in the valley.” She looked out at the rain. “It was my hideout from a world that was changing around me.”

She drifted, lost in her own thoughts. Olivia wasn’t sure whether to leave or to stay awhile longer. Then Dylan arrived, and Grace sat up, wide-awake. She turned to Olivia. “A moment, dear.”

Dylan remained on his feet after Olivia had left the room and glanced out the floor-to-ceiling window as a gray squirrel raced up a pine tree. The rain had stopped, but everything was still dripping, shrouded in fog. He was aware of Grace watching him from her chair. “You saved me yesterday, just as another man saved me all those years ago.” She spoke quietly, her voice steady, as if she’d guessed he would come. “You remind me of him.”

“When did you know?” Dylan asked, turning to her.

He could see she knew exactly what he was asking. “The moment I laid eyes on you.”